Prey
by drusidiandream
Summary: Snake and Mouse.  History repeats itself.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own the character of The Joker. That is all. *BEEP***

CHAPTER 1

The criminal smiled with a crooked grace, like a twisted angel that appeared from the darkness. His pale tongue darted out to lick nervously at his scars. He was going to have fun tonight.

Finding the house was simple enough, a phonebook had led him there easily. He giggled at the building excitement as he shuffled towards the powder blue house. There was no car in the cracked driveway. A crippled bike lay haphazardly on the front path.

The air sizzled with the electricity of a thunderstorm that had yet to break. The heat of the summer in Gotham was somewhat dulled by the evening breezes. Many home owners had opted to leave their windows open; unwilling to spend extra money to cool their homes at night.

The lean predator eyed the vicinity and formulated his plan. A window to the left of the unlit street light had been opened. A screen covered the opening, but he had broken through much stronger materials. The man snuck a glance inside, seeing a lavishly decorated, but otherwise empty room. He chuckled lowly before the slicing the screen slowly with a short knife. When the thin barrier had been disposed of, the Joker slid his knife back into its concealed holder. No one had ever found all his knives, nor had anyone ever been given a chance.

He paused, hands on the sill; listening to the sound of the night. A neighbor had the television blaring with what appeared to be an infomercial. His house was the only one with a light still on.

A challenge: he thought gleefully. He would have to be in and out silently; a job that could also be satisfying. Using his sinewy arms, he snaked his way into the darkened home.

The darkness within him reacted to the surroundings. He was at home in the silent dimness. Pictures hung on the wall, perfectly straight and with matching frames. He slowly examined each one, pausing at the last picture. A smiling family shone from the glass. The Joker grinned; his prey now identified. A middle aged man with slightly grayed hair was hugging a young woman. She was perhaps 15 years old, not even a threat.

He surveyed the room. It was gaudily decorated which led him to believe there had been no motherly influence in the house for years. Dust had settled on shelves, but the coffee table was dust free. People used the room often, but did not care about it enough to thoroughly clean.

He made his way to an open kitchen. Appliances were all pushed into corners and were covered by the same sheet of dust. A newspaper sat on the counter; it was almost a week old. He frowned a bit, and shuffled into another hallway. The dark man ogled the stairs and crept up slowly, listening cautiously for creaks.

The landing at the top gave him a view of four doors. The closest was the only one opened, and revealed a pale yellow bathroom. A nightlight shaped like a ladybug had been plugged in but did not give off light. The second door was on the left of the hallway, while the third and fourth where opposite and farther apart.

He closed his eyes, and giddily spun around with one hand extended. When he opened his eyes, his left hand was extended towards the third door. Now that he had chosen a target, he quickly made his way to the door frame. Because this was most importantly a paying job, he needed to be precise. The intruder placed an ear to the door, hearing nothing, and opened it slowly; still listening intently for sound of alarm.

Slipping into the room he surveyed another dust filled room. But whereas the rooms downstairs had been lived in, this room seemed to be a museum. A small bed with a faded space themed bedspread had been made neatly. The bureau had a few small trophies from a soccer team. The plates were from over five years ago.

He scanned it again, his photographic memory cataloging anything else he could find useful. He closed the door carefully and proceeded to the fourth door. Again, he listened and found no noise. This time, the room had been lived in recently. The king sized bed was unmade and drawers where opened and emptied.

The criminal growled, stalking over to the nightstand where he could see, only by the light of the alarm clock, a small note had been left. In frantically slanted, but clearly masculine handwriting, the man read "Dear Dolores, I wish I could have stayed. But our lives are in danger. I can tell no one, not even you, where I have gone. Please stay safe. When you find this, know that I love you but cannot stay. Be safe," the words became even more scribbled with obvious emotion; "I love you."

Ripping the note into tiny shreds consumed his full attention. He deposited the bits into a nearby trashcan.

He frowned, feeling anger stir inside. His target was gone, leaving no immediate destination. He would appear to have failed his boss, meaning no payment. He growled and sauntered out of the room, preparing himself to exit the house.

His mind was full of dangerous thoughts; blood, death, and darkness. He was hell-bent on storming out when he heard a low hum from the second door. He stopped short in front of it, grinning deliciously to himself. Perhaps his night could be saved.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or places from The Dark Night or Batman.**

CHAPTER 2

With a maliciously slow speed, the dangerous man opened the door. The only light was from a laptop that had been left on. The humming was the computer fan cooling down the hard drive. The dark room was in use.

A twin bed was pushed against the far corner. Posters of bands hung on the walls. He tried not to giggle as the human occupying the bed shifted in sleep. He approached slowly, pulling out his knife. And not one to be subtle, jumped onto the defenseless form.

Instinctively the smaller figure began to thrash. He heard the girl begin to scream beneath the sheet. He ripped the cloth away and covered her mouth with a gloved hand. He saw her eyes widen and water, close to tears.

He leaned close to her face and whispered, "Hello girlie." She struggled even more as she took in the scars on his face, and the glint of his dark eyes. He hushed her and leaned back a bit. His voice took on a conversational tone, as if he didn't have a knife in one hand, another hand keeping her from screaming, and his body pinning hers to the bed.

"Sooo, girlie, I assume it was only you and daddy dearest living here." He accented the mention of her father by tapping his knife against her cheek. She nodded quickly, hoping that by being cooperative she could stall him long enough for her father to discover him.

"You see, your daddy was a bad man. He got into the wrong business and skipped out on my boss. And guess what?" He smiled widely and nodded eagerly at her, crudely imitating her earlier nod.

She looked confused so he continued, "He skipped out on you too!" He laughed loudly and his frame shook. The tears in her eyes overflowed. He roughly shifted over her body and she froze.

He grinned again; the scars on his tan face that had frightened her earlier made the smile seem demonic. "So Dolores, can I call you Dee? Dolore? Dolly? Sure? Why thank you!" His intonations changed over each word, as if he had a different way to pronounce everything.

Dolores began to cry in earnest now, and the man slightly shook her head. "Doll, you gotta stop with the tears. You see, your old man has been hiding from my boss for almost two decades now. Apparently he had a change of heart, and a few kids, eh? What happened to mommy and your brother? Lucas, was that his name?" She continued to sob, but her eyes now burned with anger.

He grinned broadly again, tightening the hand over her mouth. "As I was saying, my boss wanted your daddy to be taken care of. So, he hired me. And I arrived tonight for the main event, only to find a note-ah, and a sleeping daughter." Dolores tried to move her arms from their position under his knees, but was halted by the knife dipping close to her neck.

"Ah, ah ah! How very rude young lady! I was mid-story. Dolly dear, you need to work on your manners!" The tears kept coming as the man above her laughed at her expense. "So my boss hired me to make an example of your father. But I just thought of something!" His eyes seemed to grow darker as he leaned down to whisper in her ear.

His breath tickled her ear and she shivered. "I found my example. It will be, YOU." His voice boomed, and she jumped. She struggled again with new found strength. One arm got loose and she grabbed the hand that covered her mouth. Caught unaware, he felt his hand be pulled from her face. He heard the shriek that tore from her mouth.

He slapped her harshly, and she lay limp in shock. He heard a door slam in the distance. "Damn you and your goddamn father. I hope finds you one day and is ashamed of what he caused." He growled as he grabbed her chin; all signs of previous humor gone from his face.

"Ohhhhhh Dolores, why don't you smile for me?" He pulled her forcefully upwards until her face was inches from his. He caressed her cheek intimately with the hand that held the knife. She opened her mouth and gritted her teeth, muttering angrily, "Devil."

Before she was aware of what was happening, he had inserted the knife into her mouth, and began to jaggedly carve through her cheek. The girl began to shake and she screamed again. This time he heard the front door slam. A voice from downstairs shouted up, "Hello? You alright up there? I gotta gun if there's a burglar." Heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs.

The man pulled the bloodied knife from the girl's mouth, shoving her back onto the bed. "Nosy neighbors are the worst-ah." She screamed again as her hands made contact with the torn flesh. Her eyes closed and she continued to wail.

The intruder took one last look before he tore the screen from her window. She heard the noise and opened her eyes a slit. The sound of footsteps approaching became louder.

She watched as the man stuck on leg out of the sill before turning to blow a kiss. "Bye-a doll face! Hope we can play again another time!" And within seconds he had disappeared into the night.

The young girl vaguely noticed the neighbor burst into her room. All she could see were the black eyes and the crude scars as she passed into unconsciousness.

The neighbor had made sure that no news caught wind of what happened that night. He was kind to her, but after checking her into the hospital, never visited her again. Dolores, as a 16 year old girl with no relatives to claim her, was passed into the foster care system; supposedly fading into oblivion.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own any characters or places from The Dark Knight or Batman. Sorry this chapter is so late!**

CHAPTER 3

A woman working in a convenience store fears nothing but the never-ending boredom of her job. The store was old, and rarely visited by the general public unless condoms or beers were needed. The appealing façade of the building was brightened by a dead plant resting next to the door.

The aging redhead popped her gum loudly behind the counter. She turned a magazine page slowly, tired eyes lingering on articles. Her manicured nails clicked softly on the counter as she sighed. She didn't glance up as the front door jingled.

She heard some shuffling as the customer moved from aisle to aisle. The sound froze as he or she examined items on a shelf. The shoe scuffling became less pronounced and the woman looked up to see a tall man hunched in front of her counter.

She gasped. The man was young, somewhere in his twenties, but was trying his best to hide his face in the collar of his jacket. He was slightly tanned and had shaggy brownish blonde hair. She breathed in slowly, trying not to look him in the eyes. They had seemed shady and dangerous.

She reached out a pink manicured claw and snatched the items he had selected, ringing them up quickly. She placed the three tubs of greasepaint, the green hair dye, and a pack of cards in a plastic bag. She barely batted an eye at the combination of unusual items; weirder things had been bought together.

"Your total is…$17.68." Again, she reached out to take the money from his hand. As she opened the cash register to get his change, she stiffened as the man moved. He had reached across the counter and had his hand on her uniform apron.

"Excuse me sir, but could you-" she was cut off as the man pulled the fabric forward slightly. His giant tan hand radiated an uncomfortable heat. He had his ominous eyes fixated on a button that she wore. It was a yellow smiley face that her employer made her carry.

Suddenly, the man looked up, freeing his face from the shield of his coat. His raspy voice made her tremble. "Excuse me ma'am, but could I have this?" She was frozen; with what she could only imagine was the expression a gazelle wore while staring into the face of a lion.

With nothing to hide them, the man's scars glared at her. She couldn't look away. One scar was lumpier, and less even than its match. His mouth was not smiling, but he still looked to be grinning cruelly. His face resembled a page from a coloring book in which a child had scribbled red over the mouth, easily drawing outside of the line.

Without waiting for a response, he reached another long limb across the counter to unhook the pin from her apron. He folded it into one of his hands and reached with the other for his bag. She gasped, coming back to life. His dark eyes watched her unflinchingly.

"H-here is your change." She had failed to keep the fear from her voice and had a sinking feeling that he understood his effect on people. He smirked, but no humor showed in his eyes.

"Keep the change, sweets." He saluted slowly and then turned, slowly creating a staccato beat with his steps. As he left the store, he attached the pin to his lapel. The woman gulped, her heart thumping uncomfortably, and looked down at her magazine again. Unable to concentrate, she instead looked down to where the smiley faced pin had been. She had always hated the thing.

She frowned slightly as her cell phone started to buzz. She answered quickly, hoping that no other customers came in at such a late time. "What do you want Jake?" Her lazy husband rarely called her at work.

She frowned even more harshly as his panicked voice told her of what had happened to the neighbor's young girl. "She is cut pretty badly, we are at the hospital. Her right cheek was sliced from her mouth all the way to her cheek bone. Its not an even cut either. We've been here about an hour, she's gone into shock I think, and all she will do is tremble."

"What happened? Where's Dan? Shouldn't he be there with her?" She had never liked Dan. He had never seemed trustworthy and the fact that his lawn often went unmowed bothered the hell out of her. Not to mention one too many nights where she saw the middle aged man coming home drunk.

Jake began to answer with, "He isn't home at the moment," but then answered the question of someone at the hospital. "What I was saying, Stacy, is that he seems to have left. I checked the room, and his drawers were cleaned out. He left Dolores on her own, and then the house was burglarized."

Stacy hissed. Dolores had always been a reclusive kid, never babysitting for neighbors. But to hear that she had been attacked and now had no one to live with, why, Stacy felt a twinge in her long embittered heart. "Jake…what are you going to do with her?"

"Well she's checked in until the Doctors say she can leave. Hopefully some family member will show up from the woodwork and claim her."

Jake then hurried through a goodbye and the call ended. Stacy slowly put the phone down. If the girl wasn't claimed, she would be put into foster care. Maybe she and Jake could take her in.

But then Stacy's mind began to doubt if that was the right thing to do. Stacy was about to retire. She and Jake had been saving for many years so that they could move to the same town that the majority of her remaining family occupied.

She sighed, bringing two pink tipped fingers to pinch the bridge of her nose. The girl was also a teenager, filled with hormones. Stacy grimaced as she imagined the bills for psychiatrists and counselors. An image of Stacy being woken in the night as Dolores screamed from nightmares made Stacy cringe.

That settled it; she was in no state of mind to care for a damaged and deserted teenaged girl. Dolores would be better off with some foster family that was prepared for her. Stacy smiled a little to herself.

Dolores would be grateful that she was being given the chance to have a new family, instead of that broken home she had been in. After what had happened to her brother and mother, Dolores was truly fortunate.

Resisting the urge to pat herself on the back, Stacy resumed the browsing of her magazine. Suddenly, Stacy's mind was consumed with what clothing she should attempt to purchase for the move to a warmer climate. All thoughts of the man with the greasepaint were far from her mind.

Besides, she thought snidely, returning to her previous conviction about deserting Dolores to the foster care system, who wants to see a scarred face everyday?


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I do not own any characters or places from The Dark Knight or Batman.**

CHAPTER 4

"So Miss...Payn was it? I assume you are here to interview for the scholarship program awarded to underprivileged or otherwise delayed students. In your file, I read that at the age of sixteen, you were entered into the foster care system?" The woman who spoke to Dolores looked as if she had never had been underprivileged or delayed a day in her life.

Dolores continued to smile as she nodded; silently observed the perfectly manufactured woman in chair across from her. Her hair, clothing, and nails reeked of high class breeding; making Dolores wonder how she ended up working for such a charitable organization.

"Yes, and from then until my eighteenth birthday, I lived with four different families." She twitched slightly, but crossed her leg to mask it. The polished woman, named Evangelique, or something similar, narrowed her kohl-lined eyes. Her eyes reminded Dolores of a house cat's, bored with the dead toy placed in front of her.

The room that the two had settled into was the woman's office. It was immaculately cleaned, bright, and impersonal. The unnatural lighting bothered Dolores' eyes and she found herself squinting occasionally. Being naturally self-conscious, she tried to remember to sit up straight and to be relaxed.

"And because of such moving around, and the recovery from your...injury, you were unable to complete high school on time. It says here that you completed it a year and a half later than scheduled."

Dolores nodded; glad that her scar had finally been brought up. Otherwise, the weight of it stifled most conversation. Said scar ran up the right side of her face. The blemish was slightly raised and a tan color, standing out from Dolores' pale skin. Thus was the reason that Dolores avoided conversing with strangers, they mostly stared. "Yes, and I finished with a 4.0 average and most honors."

The woman's smile seemed sardonic, as if she had heard that line multiple times. "Why yes you did, dear. Now, concerning the scholarship program, why are you applying?" She pulled a pen from a mug resting on the table and began to scribble a note into the file.

Dolores took a deep, calming breath. This was her last chance to get out of the Narrows. An education could get her a better job, house, and life; if only Miss Priss would approve her.

"After leaving the system, I applied for a job at a local hotel as a maid. For the past year and a half, I have been saving my wages and upon realizing that I would not be able to afford college and rent, I sought out help. This is why I am here today. I have no family to help me pay for college and in order to better myself I desperately need this scholarship."

It may have been the pleading in her voice that made Evangelique grimace. For such weak and poor people to come into her office daily and ask for help, it made her squirm. She looked once more at Dolores; scrutinizing the makeup, the clothing, and lastly, the scar.

Dolores' scar had been inflicted by, what her file stated, a childhood incident. But Evangelique found that hard to believe. The somewhat bumpy scar that started at her right mouth corner and traveled upwards into her cheek was garish. Immediately her mind began to supply stories as to why the young woman of twenty-one was scarred.

Dolores watched as Evangelique's eyes lit up with a sudden thought. "Miss Payn, have you ever done drugs?"

Startled by the sudden question, Dolores stuttered. "N-no Ma'am. I would never jeopardize my health in such a matter!" Evangelique narrowed her perfectly lined eyes again. Without needing evidence to confirm her theory, Evangelique decided that in some drug related incident, Dolores had been carved.

That settled it; her company would give no such help to a druggie. Looking at the file in her hand, she subtly checked off the box that read, "Do not consider." She looked up into the eyes of Dolores and smiled fakely.

"Well Miss Payn, that will be all for today. Thank you for applying and we will call you if we decide to fund your college education." Every word that left her mouth seemed to mock Dolores. This woman had clearly labeled her as trash; unworthy-of-being-educated trash.

Panic built in her chest. "Really? That's it? There aren't anymore questions concerning my credibility? I even brought references." Her voice began to rise slightly as she fought for her future.

Evangelique stood and held an arm out, gesturing towards the door. A Tiffany bracelet came untucked from her sleeve and dangled temptingly from her arm. "That is all, Miss Payn. We will call you if we decide in favor of your case." Dolores wondered who the 'we' she spoke of was, when clearly Evangelique decided all cases quickly based on appearances.

Excusing herself politely, Dolores stood, making stony eye contact with the woman who had sealed her fate. Dolores looked down on the woman, envious of the expensive lifestyle. All she wanted was a taste of that money.

Dolores left the office feeling sick to her stomach. And then the slow burn of anger set in. She angrily pulled her brown hair back into a ponytail and stomped to the nearest bus stop.

The briskness of Gotham in winter bit at her face. The sky was a dull gray, and at points, nearing a blackness that Dolores feared would consumer her existence. Snow was a constant danger at this time of year.

She passed newspaper stand and stopped read a headline that jumped off the page. "Joker in Arkham thanks to Bat." Dolores didn't follow the news too often, but even she had been alarmed by the stories circulating.

A criminal and hero, both shrouded in mystery, had been wreaking havoc in the city. Gotham had been falling into bad hands lately, and Dolores wondered if her apartment was safe. Picturing the dingy two room apartment that she called 'home,' made Dolores long for a safe place of comfort and love.

Her first foster care home had been wonderful. An aging woman with a bad hip had nursed her back to semi-health for a year. The woman hadn't owned a television and disliked hearing about murders or robberies; thus shutting Dolores off from the outside world.

The woman would soon abandon Dolores after one particularly bad nightmare. Dolores awoke screaming, with the feeling of the knife in her cheek. The woman who had been caring for her had fallen in her rush to get to the young girl; and was hospitalized.

From there on out, Dolores was passed into other horribly kept homes where the caretakers only cared for the check they received monthly. Turning eighteen had been a shining moment in her life. But that was only considering her life after the incident.

After arriving for her interview and waiting for hours in the reception area, it was already dark outside. Dolores hurried along, her old boots scuffing on the pavement.

Goose bumps broke out on her flesh as she stood waiting for the bus. A small group of people had huddled around the stop and were silently watching the street for the dark blue bus. It was only then, in the silent of the evening that Dolores allowed the self pity to wash over her.

Only then did she let tears pool in her eyes at the thought of a life without betterment or purpose, forever trapped in the Narrows of Gotham.

And then, and only then, did she hear the sirens.


End file.
